before i answer that, i just want to shout out to vanita gupta. if you listen to her speech, she touched on a number of things that are really important. she talked about guns, she talked about violence, she talked about morale, she talked about restoring public trust. we did a survey of all of our police chiefs, that was the number one criteria, what was the most important thing that keeps them up at night, and it's restoring public trust, and she mentioned something about monitoring, about better control of monitoring. we've been watching that for years. she knows this issues. she's doing something. just a little shout-out that we have someone that's hearing us. let me ask you all a question, the mayors, which i love to talk to. raise your hand if you're having trouble hiring police officers. okay. raise your hand if you're not having trouble hiring police officers. okay. let me hear from the two mayors who said they're not having trouble. what are you doing right? because this is the number one issue that keeps mayors and police chiefs up. i me

we could hear from merrick garland or vanita gupta that they will defend these four u.s. marshals in court. or we can har a satisfactory -- hear a satisfactory answer of why they won't defend the marshals in court. is it because they were standing up to a left-wing street militia? is it because they were taking a stance to defend federal property from antifa? i don't know. we can't get an answer. maybe my democratic colleagues could get an answer. but to think that i'm just going to roll over and allow the senate to fast-track nominees to the department when gs-11's and gs-13's law enforcement officials are being hung out to dry? sorry. these are people -- and i've talked to them -- who are worried about buying christmas gifts for their children last year because they were going to have to pay legal fees, who worried about paying the mortgage next year, next month, who worry about sending their kids to camp. sorry if your lawyers have to wait for a week or two to get confirmed to the u.s. attorneys position. i'm worried about four heroes who defended federal property from

conference of mayors. >> with that, i will turn it over to vanita gupta to share some words of wisdom with

there's vanita gupta, who previously advocated for sweeping drug decriminalization and expressed her support for efforts to, quote, decrease political -- decrease police budgets, end quote. there's kristen clarke, also confirmed by senate democrats to work in d.o.j. who echoed calls to invest less in police. these are president biden's picks to top jobs at main justice. i just had to place a hold on a nominee to be u.s. attorney for minnesota because the person acting in that job recommended an unusually soft sentence below the maximum guideline to a convicted fatal arsonist because the arsonist was taking part in a far-left political riot at the time. i'll need written assurances the nominee to succeed this person will not continue this jaw-dropping practice and lessen criminal sentences so long as the political violence they commit happens to be left wing. the modern democratic party has convinced itself that order, order is actually oppression and anarchy is actually compassion. this is totally wrong. tolerating lawlessness and anarchy is not compassionate. it doesn't help vulnera

kristen clark, vanita gupta. both of them were outspoken proponents of the defund police movement. now they're actually in the depadepartment of justice. kristin clark wrote, we must invest less in police and more in social workers. she also w -- she also wrote we must invest less in police, more in mental health aid. it was the main focus of the defund the police movement that she continue to be able to rise. vanita gupta said it's critical for state and local leaders to decrease police budgets and police in our lives. there's a reason that she is actually selected to be in that spot. it matches with the priorities and the values of the administration. the same thing when with you look at defense. national defense -- alexandra baker said she's outspoken and believes that climate change is the leading national security challenge that we face. the leading national security challenge. i'm sure the folks in russia and ukraine would be glad to be able to hear that our leading challenge currently is climate change in the department of defense. these are all sets of priorities. it's the

. >> with that, i will turn it over to vanita gupta to share some words of wisdom with us. so